


L'esprit de L'escalier

by Ravelle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ar Lath Ma, Dragon Age Quest: Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, F/M, Love Letters, Memories, Nostalgia, Orlais, POV Solas, Post-Trespasser, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 17:03:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11235366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravelle/pseuds/Ravelle
Summary: A reminiscing love letter of a sort, from Solas to Ravelle Lavellan, in which he recounts their time in Orlais.





	L'esprit de L'escalier

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Now You Don't](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6750535) by [spacetango](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacetango/pseuds/spacetango). 



> I was inspired to write this by the brilliant work Now You Don't by spacetango. I thought I might try my hand at a post-Trespasser letter from Solas to my inquisitor, Ravelle, of their own time together in Orlais during the Wicked Eyes, Wicked Hearts mission.

“You never let anyone see under that polite mask you wear, do you?”

 

The question slipped the moorings of your tongue and passed through the safe harbor of your lips to set sail on the sea of space between us. Arguing had so oft been our foreplay that it was particularly difficult to concede your point, instead of picking up the glove you dropped. Curiously distressing to watch you deflate as you realized I seemed content to let it lie there, unacknowledged. Belatedly, I pick it up now, to accept your challenge.

 

You are the worst sort of hypocrite vhenan.

 

No matter the style of robes you wear they are merely a facade, your armor has ever been courtesy. The mask of civility you wore among the more initiated in Orlais was equal to my own; so finely fashioned I wondered if you had kept yourself hidden away behind the blackened branches of the dahl’amythal all along. Did you surreptitiously peek through those trees to appraise those that would chivy you; in hopes of sinking teeth into the left flank you had so cleverly kept exposed?

 

Did you see me there my love?

 

I saw you.

 

I saw everything.

 

 

The magical lanterns cast golden light upon your bare shoulders, as you gracefully navigated the treacherous landscape of the magnificently appointed topiary garden. You traversed the paths between trees and bushes artfully manicured into chess pieces deftly, as if they were mapped in your mind. I watched as you dipped your head to accept a whisper from Gaspard, his mouth brusquely brushing your shell pink ear. You ascended suddenly as one surfacing for air, joyful for nothing but breath. A wicked smile played on your lips as you grazed the chevalier’s arm with a gloved finger before moving on to your next victim.

 

The exquisite heat of my pulse throbbed vociferously in the blades of my ears, the deafening nocturne of jealousy.

 

You paused to accept thanks from King Theirin, and dropped into a brief curtsey, which no doubt gave him a breathtaking view of your décolletage. The watered silk of your skirts, their verdant luminescence reminiscent of the fade, flounced fetchingly as you rose.

 

“Your gratitude is unnecessary Alistair, the mages themselves were thanks enough.” You assured him sweetly before you left him blushing in your wake.

 

You were not there for King Therin, not that night at least, and he remained unscathed.

 

Would that I had been as fortunate.

 

I seethed inwardly when Empress Celene had the temerity to touch you, presumably to set a single chandelier earring to swinging. The hand that lit the torch for Halamshiral, fetishizing your elven ears. It was insult enough without the musical titter this blasphemy elicited from you. With but a twist of your fingers you conjured a golden rose to present to the Empress, which she accepted, her demeanor uncharacteristically coquettish.

 

Inside my white gloves my palms began to sweat, dampening the formerly pristine fabric.

 

My breath stilled to behold you, never had I thought to see it; Velle, you looked like you belonged there.

 

So long had I imagined you beside me in time, that the notion of you thriving among them transcended heresy. Yet here it was before my eyes, your truth undeniable. Was I the only one innocent of your manipulations?

 

No.

 

I deny you not, vhenan.

 

I go to you as the rogue goes, cloaked within your shadow.

I go to you as the supplicant goes, humbly seeking your blessing.

I go to you as the wolf goes, slavering for your taste.

I go to you as the God goes, eager to claim what is mine.

 

And you are mine.

 

I dispensed with the trappings of gallantry; that night in Orlais it was I, alone, who eschewed my mask. In my chest beat the coursing heart of the opportunist, as I shrewdly sought a weakness to exploit. I discerned your next target, Briala; and fervently tracked your progress, poised to strike. When you circled round the topiary Tower, that is when I took you.

 

Back then you were always but a thought away.

 

The cry of surprised dismay muffled warmly into the damp palm of the glove I’d clamped over your mouth, as I used my other arm to circumscribe your waist. Your body tensed in my arms, made taut with fright. You were right to fear me. It was madness, nothing but madness you drove me to, forbidden as you were to me it was doubly so here.

 

“Vhenan.”

 

With but a word I defeated your defenses and you opened to me, your body yielding, amenable to my iniquities. When I ceded your mouth your first breath was my name.

 

“Solas.”

 

It emerged from you in a worshipful gasp, a perverse prayer sent up to the deity who had you at his mercy.

 

I’ve never been much for mercy.

 

“You’ve utterly enchanted them all.” I murmured, whilst I slid my nose up your nape to scent the embers of your inferno.

 

That unique smoky sweet tang, redolent of an ancient empire burning to ash; it enflamed even me, the coldest of men.

 

Unscrupulously, I traced the confines of your bodice, blonde lace and the surfeit of your sumptuous flesh quivered beneath my fingertips.

 

My gloved fingertips.

 

Inside my head I fumed, cursing the trammels of custom, of propriety. As ever, there was something between us, be it my lies, your secrets and suspicions; or as it was then, those damnable gloves. The trappings of etiquette forbidding all the liberties I would take of you.

 

“And you?”

 

I answer your inquiry by flexing the forearm that encircles your waist, drawing you in closer, pressing the full measure of my pleasure against all those layers of fanciful skirts that obscured your hindquarters from view.

 

Your sharp intake of breath at this had you practically spilling from your bodice, and I slipped a single finger between your breasts.

 

What of me?

 

Your simple query held hidden depths. I, that night, was in my guise as your Elven servant.

 

“And me. After all, tonight I only live to serve you, what form will that service take I wonder?”

 

I lay the trap expertly, and as ever, you did not disappoint.

 

Infuriated at my insinuation, you snapped at lure.

 

“I should have let Florianne murder Celene, did you see the way she touched me?” You rasped savagely.

 

In my arms, you shook with barely contained rage, I rejoiced to feel it.

 

“Mind your tongue, da’len, we are still their guests.” I scolded, wary of undetected ears.  

 

Though inwardly, relief flooded through me, you were not of their kind, not of them.

 

You were still mine.

 

Even now, after all that has passed between us, I know it to be be true.

 

You are mine.

 

Still mine.

 

“Perhaps you should mind it for me.” You bristled, too incensed to heed my warning.

 

The offer had scant escaped you yet I was already there. I captured your mouth beneath mine and transgressed you with my tongue, plunged your depths, just as heedless as you. You reached back to dip a hand beneath my collar, where your nails marked me in a spot no one would see. This is how you claim me, carving out your territory deep into my quick.  

 

Then came the tolling of the bells, the signal of your imminent victory; but there was no triumph to be had in the garden, only the cessation of your lips.

 

I am obliged to spare you, in that moment at least.

 

I stepped away, made myself presentable once more, straightening my collar and adjusting my cuffs. While you fluffed the skirts I’d flattened and carefully rearranged the lace of your bodice into something resembling its original whimsy.     

 

You grasped my hand before I could step through the fade to the ballroom, clutched it so hard I felt my knuckles grind.

 

“Ar lath ma, Solas.”

 

Your whisper was fervent, desperate for me to believe I was more to you than this.

 

Endlessly I had wandered the labyrinth of your heart, I wander it still; but never had I thought for you to say this to me for the first time here of all places, in Orlais, within this palace of deceit.

 

So like your heart, ma vhenan.

 

Lovesick fool that I am, I am hungry for your lies; never will I be sated.

 

Here I stand before you, unmasked.

 

Your turn.


End file.
